Heroine Poster

Heroine started witnessing considerable drops ever since last Friday. The movie made a small 1 Crore on it’s 2nd Friday, 1.20 Crores on Saturday and an approx 1.40 Crores on Sunday. Madhur Bhandarkar’s much hyped project Heroine could make only 3.60 Crores on it’s 2nd weekend at the domestic box office.

The Kareena Kapoor starrer now stands at a domestic box office total of 40.10 Crores. Also another 9 Crores at the overseas box office brings up its worldwide box office total to 49.10 Crores.

From the looks of it the movie won’t last more than a week at the box office. A lifetime collection of 43-44 Crores is the best the movie can achieve in India.

The makers of the movie will not be in a loss via this venture but the distributors sure will. After the huge publicity and the hype that ensued it was only expected that Heroine would be a super-hit. However, the masses seemed to not like the movie to that extent and showed their finger down.

Better luck with an “ORIGINAL” story next time Madhur.

Heroine Movie Poster

Rating: 1.5 stars (One-and-a-half stars)

Star cast: Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Randeep Hooda, Divya Dutta, Shahana Goswami, Ranvir Shorey.

What’s Good: Some performances; the title track and Saiyaan song.

What’s Bad: The story and script seem to be in an endless loop; stereotypical, uni-dimensional characters; Kareena’s frequent breakdowns in the movie.

Loo Break: Any number of times.

Watch or Not?: Heroine movie irritates more than entertains, but some of the performances are nice.

User Rating :

An apt title to Madhur Bhandarkar’s magnum opus would be Bipolar rather than Heroine as the movie seems more like a peek into the head of someone with a serious psychiatric disorder than into the glamorous world of acting, movies and the like.

Mahi Arora (Kareena Kapoor) is the moody, spoilt actress on top of her game. Not only does she have the best movies in her kitty, she’s also in a relationship with the much married superstar Aryan Khanna (Arjun Rampal). While Aryan is trying to get his divorce finalized, Mahi goes from being the adoring lover one moment, to stark-raving-possessive girlfriend in the other. Going with the flow, our pouty actress also has a drinking problem and regularly visits her shrink for prescription drugs. The ominous narrator announces how Mahi was always about extremes: consumed in love or withered with fury.

After another of her screaming incidents, Mahi gets humiliatingly dumped by Aryan. Her career is down in the dumps and so is she. Enter fairy godmother/PR person (Divya Dutta) who waves her magic wand and gets our heroine out of the molasses. Mahi also finds love again, this time with the charming cricketer Angad Paul (Randeep Hooda). To sharpen her skills as an actor, Mahi also signs up for an art film directed by a national award winning director (Ranvir Shorey), which co-stars Shahana Goswami.

The movie does a rinse-and-repeat from here on with heartbreak, love and heartbreak again. Watch the rest of the movie for more close-ups of Kareena’s blood-shot eyes, her incessant break-downs and some really confusing blocks in the story.

Kareena Kapoor Heroine Movie Stills

Heroine Review: Script Analysis

Madhur Bhandarkar may try and claim his stories to be “real” every time, but this time the writer-director is downright lazy. He, along with writers Anuradha Tiwari, Manoj Tyagi and Niranjan Iyengar, has taken page-3 stories about stars and based them around a few characters. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except that the movie comes out as being too fake.

It’s annoying to see the stereotypes played out in almost every character: the designers are gay, reporters have a bitchy aura and always sport funky jewellery, the path to the dark side begins with cigarettes and alcohol, bad people sleep around etc. Except the few lead characters, everyone else is as good as cardboard cut-outs. The writers seem to be intent to stuff in as much tragedy as they can into Mahi’s woe-is-me life and towards the end you just can’t stop rolling your eyes. While they might want you to feel for Mahi, you find yourself laughing off her character than ever rooting for her. The 3 hour long movie gets repetitive with Mahi’s heartbreak, psycho rage and love doing cartwheels repeatedly. The bright side is that the writers have shown the number of problems heroines face in the industry with their short shelf life, lecherous actors, being written off after marriage etc. Niranjan Iyengar’s dialogues are alright though the ones like “Manipulate karo ya ho jao” doesn’t really certify his ingenuity.

Heroine Review: Star Performances

Kareena Kapoor owns the movie as the, er, bipolar actress Mahi. As much as you would like to appreciate her ability to showcase the mood swings behind the camera, her character badly suffers from hackneyed writing. Arjun Rampal is alright as Aryan with Randeep Hooda bettering him as the suave Angad. Divya Dutta does well in her uni-dimensional role as the PR agent. Shahana Goswami and Ranvir Shorey are very good in their small roles.

Heroine Review: Direction, Music & Technical Aspects

The captain brings the ship down, sail, deck and all. Director Madhur Bhandarkar made his movie from a magnum opus to a monstrous blob that has too many leaks to be fixed. And the leaden script is of no help. Madhur should have focused on a few aspects of Mahi’s life instead of thrusting everything into a 3 hour long haze with alcohol, psychological problems, mummy-issues, role mongering, lesbian relationship… Salim-Sulaiman’s music is nice with Halkat Jawani, Saiyaan and Heroine being the noteworthy songs. Editor Devendra Murdeshwar has done a passable job. Cinematography by Mahesh Limaye is good.

Heroine Review: The Last Word

Kareena Kapoor does a good job and, heck, you even get to see her in a pseudo lesbian scene along with other steamy scenes. If that’s enough to drag you to see Heroine, go ahead. Give it a miss otherwise.

Heroine Trailer

Heroine releases on 21th September, 2012

Kareena Kapoor (Heroine Movie Stills)

Belonging to a legion of creative genius, one that is touted as the first family in the history of Hindi cinema, this perseverant and determined gritty girl had set her eyes on her goals, back in the early 2000s.

Being touted as Bollywood’s ‘Heroine no. 1’, Kareena Kapoor broke the jinx with a powerful performance in Chameli followed by the peppy and vivaciously charming Geet of ‘Jab We Met’! Today, this gorgeous fashionista cum Bollywood diva is known for her beauty and her innate acting prowess.

With a strong film up for release, Kareena spells charisma as Mahi Arora in Madhur Bhandarkar’s magnum opus Heroine! She essays the role of an actress’s life through the deep dungeons of filmdom, amidst all glitz and stardust with consummate ease and perfection.

On a promotional spree for her latest flick ‘Heroine’ that releases this week, Kareena Kapoor took out time to have a short and crisp chat with us, giving away brief details about her character and the film in totality!

Here’s the set-piece of a delightful read, Enjoy!

‘Heroine’ has been making news ever since the film was announced for all right as well as wrong reasons stamping it as the most anticipated film of the year. How was it getting to enact such a strong role of Mahi Arora?

Mahi Arora is an edgy, aggressive, over-emotional and eccentric woman. She doesn’t think before making a decision. Madhur calls her satkeli. I did not prepare for the role with any research. I just followed the script and Madhur. Mahi has many shades and it was brilliant portraying her. I loved playing this character because it had many shades and mood to perform.

You were always Madhur’s first choice for the film. How was it to be back on board with Heroine?

I refused Heroine earlier because I did not have dates to do it. I was busy shooting for Ra.One, Bodyguard and Agent Vinod. Heroine is such a movie that it needed all my time. I was destined to do it and so it came back to me. I finally got a clear patch of days and shot for it in one go. For 75 days, it was all about Heroine.

With a movie like ‘Heroine’ comes in a great sense of responsibility as an actor and huge expectations. With the fan-frenzy worldwide, what is Kareena Kapoor expecting out of ‘Heroine’?

I hope that the audience likes what Madhur and I have put together for them.

‘Heroine’ is a story which gives an insight into the dark dungeons and harsh realities of the glitzy world of cine blitz. How much of Kareena have you put into Mahi?

Apart from the fact that both Mahi my character and I are actresses, there are no similarities.

With the advent of age, Indian films are attaining the level of realism and most importantly it has reached an Era where women are ruling the box office. With ‘Heroine’ also being a hugely woman-oriented film, how do you take the radical change that the industry has undergone?

It has been a slow change, but it was in offering. This change was bound to happen with the new crop of script-writers, directors and producers. People and their thinking have changed. And cinema has always been ever evolving, so this change is welcome and here to stay.

You were and you are always called as Bollywood’s ‘Heroine no.1’ and with a film like ‘Heroine’ up your sleeve, it must have been even more exciting for you. Some even call Heroine as the path breaking film of your career. Do you agree to it? If yes, then why? If no, then why don’t you?

Yes, Heroine is going to be one of the most important films of my career. It has been a brilliant platform for me to go out of my ability and perform. And when that happens, you know that you have left no stone unturned. I can’t wait for the film to release and at the same time I hope everyone likes it.

This is the first time we get to see you pairing up with Madhur Bhandarkar. How was it bonding with him on the sets?

Madhur and I had wanted to work together for a while. And what a brilliant project to work together on! Madhur is a very spontaneous filmmaker and I am a spontaneous actor. I had a lot of fun shooting for the movie. The movie has so many layers to it but at no point did I feel emotionally overwhelmed with all of it because this is how Madhur films a movie, with so much ease. I also learnt two very important words from him – Jhandu and Jalwa.

Coming to the song that has kept the temperature around soaring worldwide: Halkat Jawaani: it has created such a noise! You look smashing in the song and it stands out as one of the most infectious tunes of the year. While some people still feel that the song could have stood out better, what would be your take on Halkat Jawaani?

I have got fabulous response for Halkat and the song is dong wonderfully well.

After ‘Heroine’ what is keeping you busy?

Let the ‘After’ come and then we’ll talk about it!

Kareena Kapoor Heroine Movie Stills

UTV and the film-makers of Heroine can finally heave a sigh of relief. The Delhi High Court has granted the film permission to permit smoking scenes in the films without running the”static “ message of “No Smoking”.

Justice Shakdher of Delhi High Court issued this statement saying “It is prima facie not appropriate for respondent nos. 1 and 2 (ministries of the I&B and the Health) to disturb the state of affairs in interregnum.

This is specially so, as the measures put in place on November 29, 2011 appear to have worked well between December 2011 and March 2012,” . The ministries of I&B and the health ministry had earlier raised concerns over various scenes in the film, where the lead actress Kareena Kapoor is shown smoking a cigarette.

Heroine film-makers had earlier applied for permission to release the film without the anti-smoking message during smoking scenes. They seem relieved now once that the court has asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to issue certificate without this condition.

Check out the 1st official video song of Heroine movie featuring Kareena Kapoor. Halkat Jawani is composed by Salim Merchant & Sulaiman Merchant and has vocals by Sunidhi Chauhan.

Heroine Movie Halkat Jawani Song | Kareena Kapoor

Kareena Kapoor hot dance in hot saree in Halkat Jawani song in Heroine Movie Stills

Heroine releases 21st September 2012.

Kareena Kapoor in Heroine Movie

“They had waited for over a month to cut a new promo that could meet Censor Board’s U/A guidelines at the least, if not U. However despite their best efforts and redesigning of the promos, Censors have been left unimpressed. The choice was simple, either they cut the ‘objectionable’ material or be content with the ‘A’ certificate”, informs a source.

Due to this reason, the film now stands almost no chance to be screened in theatres in it’s as-is format. Reason being that biggies like ‘Joker‘, ‘Ek Tha Tiger‘, ‘Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi‘ and ‘Barfii‘ would be either U or U/A which means ‘Heroine‘ can’t arrive with them.

Still, the makers aren’t really minding the developments and there is a strong reason behind that.

“There are still some avenues open though”, an insider adds, “In all probability ‘Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum‘, ‘Raaz 3‘, ‘Jism 2‘ and ‘Gangs Of Wasseypur 2‘ would be certified as ‘Adults only’. This means ‘Heroine’ could arrive along with them now. Suddenly there is an influx of ‘adults only films which means ‘Heroine’ would still manage to gain good visibility. Kareena doesn’t have to worry.”

Meanwhile the makers would in all possibility resort to YouTube and other online means to release their promo. Since there are no Censor restrictions on online streaming of videos, ‘Heroine’ would also end up gaining further visibility with two versions, a cut and an uncut, being floated around.